The proposed regulations are overly burdensome and unnecessary.  They have no proven medical benefit and will only serve to reduce or eliminate patient access to health care. Women in Virginia need more access to affordable, high quality health care, not less. The regulations will increase the financial burden on patients and decrease patients' health care options, thereby marginalizing young, low-income, and uninsured women. In this economy, we literally cannot afford to decrease access to preventive reproductive health care and abortion. 

Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures in existence. Instead of improving safety, these regulations will limit access to a wide range of preventive reproductive health care services provided by women's health clinics, including life-saving cancer screenings, family planning, and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. This is unacceptable, and I urge the Board of Health to amend its proposed permanent regulations to reflect the aforementioned facts, rather than blatant partisan posturing.